Thursday Morning Champions League Preview

Thursday's multi is a cheeky little $26 three-fold.

Is Spurs’ trip to PSV a make-or-break clash? Probably not, but with no points from two matches – and Barcelona and Inter on six each – anything but a win in Eindhoven on Wednesday would probably leave them needing snookers to qualify for the last-16.

This will be far from easy for Mauricio Pochettino’s team; PSV have won all eight of their Eredivisie fixtures this season, although they did get beaten at home to Inter (who, in my opinion are still a weaker team than Spurs) which followed a 4-0 thrashing at the Nou Camp.

Spurs will treat this as a must win, and I believe they’ll do so. It’s easy to forget that they have had their best ever start to a Premier League season, and although they (somewhat unfortunately) lost to Inter on the road, the North Londoners have won four of their five league away games.

Forget Liverpool v Red Star or PSV v Spurs – this is the game I’ll be watching closest on Thursday morning.

Two recent against-the-odds title winners – though still European juggernauts in their own right – face-off in a fascinating clash of styles: Dortmund’s adventurous abandon comes up against the Atléti wall; I absolutely cannot wait.

With both sides comfortable on six points (and Club Brugge and Monaco pointless), I suspect both teams will be content with a point, and that’s what I’m backing. Diego Simeone and his Atlético Madrid side are the absolute masters of grinding out results with their backs to the wall – the stat about goalkeeper Jan Oblak having more clean sheets than goals conceded is wonderful – and ultimately a stalemate looks by far the most likely outcome.

While Dortmund have notched up 23 league goals already, their opponents have conceded just four, so don’t be surprised to see a 0-0 or 1-1 come the full-time whistle.